Winding Road - Brabus Rocket Article
I'm not really that big a fan of 'German Engineering' and they often sacrifice over the top mechanicals for serviceability (i.e. Designing the engine accessibility on the Porsche Boxter where it requires the engine to be removed and a $500 service for a freaking oil change. That and the 911 being struts at all four corners.). I find that Japanese vehicles give me more bang for the buck even if they are lower quality to begin with. I'm not willing to pay the premium for a nice interior and the weight penalty for a car I'm going to beat on at the track.
That being said the Rocket is an amazing machine. I highly respect the technological wizardry of the big German tuning houses. German tuners like Brabus, Dinnan, and Hartage have been able to stuff the best big engines from the likes of BMW and Mercedes and tune 200mph+ refined daily drivable road rocket. They must do this in a extremely high quality manner to past the stringent TUV testing requirements.
You think a VQ35 swap into a 240sx is hot stuff? How about stuffing a M5 V8 into a Z4 roadster? Good luck with that one.
Any aftermarket parts sold or installed on registered cars in Germany must be TUV tested and approve to make sure it doesn't blow up at 100 mph plus on 'ze Autobhan. This is part of why German aftermarket parts are so bloody expensive.
Since modern German automobiles are highly complex with crazy ECU's and in car networks controlling everything and are tuned very close to the limit straight out of the factory you need equal parts components manufacture and computer scientist to make any sort of improvement.
You can be sure that the stock broker that paid $100K for his M5 is not going to accept any compromises in reliability and driveablitly or else his dates will quickly dump him for a dude in a stock Ferrari.
So this begs the question; If German tuners can reprogram the ECU's, ABS, stability, traction control and the other various electronics systems of the most complex and sophisticated cars in the world and maintain OEM reliability and refinement why can't US tuners do the same?
It's freaking 2007, nine years after OBDII was introduced with mandatory flash reprogrammable ECU's and 6 years after the new CAN protocols have been introduced and we are now just seeing consumer re-programmable ECU flashing devices commonly on the market.
Where are the aftermarket plug and play CAN modules that can seamlessly integrate with the factory ECU and add extra features like intercooler sprayers, active differential controllers, and other nifty accessories all triggered by the existing sensors on the vehicle?
An add in CAN module could also simplify installing a CAN equipped powertrain with the factory ECU into a non CAN older vehicle.
It just seems that the level of ECU tuning available in the US and Japan for Japanese cars is way behind the curve of the stuff coming out of Germany.
Tuners like Vishnu, Jim Wolf, and Techno Square are doing great jobs at modifying the factory ECU's. Most modern cars in the mid price range now come with better ECU's stock than 99% of the aftermarket stand alone units. All that they need is a bit of tweaking to push the tune to the more aggressive end of the spectrum from OEM to make large power and throttle response improvements.
Stand alone ECU's are becoming less and less feasible for non track cars. Gone are the days of simply tuning the fuel, timing, and maybe boost maps. Now you have to tune electronic throttle, continuously variable cam timing on intake and exhaust, and a host of other integrated interdependent functions throughout the dynamic operating range of the engine. This is well beyond a hour or two on the dyno and requires lots of R&D and some engineering degrees to make any real improvements.
Perhaps it is due to what the market is willing to pay for. Sophisticated electronics systems and quality parts take lots of R&D $$$$$ to make and that increases the cost of the finished product.
With vehicles getting ever more complex and manufactures turning out highly tuned vehicles from the factory like the R35 GTR, Evo X, and new STI with powerful engine control systems that when the factory idiot proof tuning is removed can greatly improve the power and response that driving enthusiast want modifications to the vehicles software will become more and more important as hardware gains become more difficult.
What do you think?
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